Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that NITI Aayog will initiate a national programme to direct efforts in AI and the Department of Science and Technology will launch a Mission on Cyber Physical Systems.

Presenting Budget 2018-19 in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recalled that in his budget last year he had announced a similar reduction for companies with annual turnover of less than Rs 50 crore in fiscal 2015-16.

"Cryptocurrencies are not legal tender and the government discourages its use. However, the government will look at the utilisation of Blockchain (a distributed digital technology that supports crypto currencies)," Jaitley said.

The move to raise duty on mobile phones is likely to hurt players like Apple that import most of their phones from China, thereby compelling them to consider manufacturing higher number of models in india.